Silence descended as realization clubbed me over the head.

This wasn’t the first time he’d been forced to choose between me and another. This wasn’t the first time he’d stained his hands with his family’s blood to save mine. Oh god.

“Of course.” I nodded too quickly, my voice horribly light. My smile horribly bright. “It’s fine. This is fine.” I pushed to my feet, offering him a hand. He eyed it for a second, hesitating, and my stomach dropped to somewhere around my ankles. I smiled harder. Of course he would hesitate to touch me. To touch anyone. He’d just undergone a traumatic experience. He’d cast his first magic since Modraniht, and he’d used it to harm his brethren. Of course he felt conflicted. Of course he didn’t want me—

I flung the unbidden thought aside, cringing away as if it’d bitten me. But it was too late. The poison had already set in. Doubt oozed from the punctures of its fangs, and I watched—disconnected—as my hand fell back to my side. He caught it at the last second, gripping it firmly. “Don’t,” he said.

“Don’t what?”

“Whatever you’re thinking. Don’t.”

I gave a harsh laugh, casting about for a witty reply but finding none. I helped him to his feet instead. “Let’s get back to camp. I’d hate to disappoint your mother. At this point, she’s probably salivating to roast us both on a spit. I might welcome it, actually. It’s freezing out here.”

He nodded, still frighteningly impassive, and tugged on his boots in silence. We’d just started back for the Hollow when a small movement in my periphery made me pause.

His gaze cut around us. “What is it?”

“Nothing. Why don’t you go on ahead?”

“You aren’t serious.”

Another movement, this one more pronounced. My smile—still too bright, too cheerful—vanished. “I need to take a piss,” I said flatly. “Would you like to watch?”

Reid’s cheeks flamed, and he coughed, ducking his head. “Er—no. I’ll wait right—right over there.” He fled behind the thick foliage of a fir tree without a backward glance. I watched him go, craning my neck to ensure he was out of sight, before turning to study the source of movement.

At the edge of the pool, not quite dead, the last of the Chasseurs watched me with pleading eyes. He still clutched his Balisarda. I knelt beside him, nausea churning as I pried it from his stiff, frozen fingers. Of course Reid hadn’t taken it from him—from any of them. It would’ve been a violation. It didn’t matter that witches would likely happen upon these bodies and steal the enchanted blades for themselves. To Reid, robbing his brethren of their identities in their final moments would’ve been an unthinkable betrayal, worse even than killing them.

The Chasseur’s pale lips moved, but no sound came out. Gently, I rolled him onto his stomach. Morgane had once taught me how to kill a man instantly. “At the base of the head,” she’d instructed, touching the tip of her knife to my own neck, “where the spine meets the skull. Sever the two, and there can be no resuscitation.”

I mimicked Morgane’s movement against the Chasseur’s neck. His fingers twitched in agitation. In fear. But it was too late for him now, and even if it weren’t, he’d seen our faces. Perhaps he’d seen Reid use magic as well. This was the only gift I could give either of them.

Taking a deep, steadying breath, I plunged the Balisarda into the base of the Chasseur’s skull. His fingers stopped twitching abruptly. After a moment’s hesitation, I rolled him back over, clasped his hands across his chest, and replaced his Balisarda between them.

As predicted, Madame Labelle waited for us on the edge of the Hollow, her cheeks flushed and her eyes bright with anger. Fire practically spewed from her nostrils. “Where have you—” She stopped short, eyes widening as she took in our rumpled hair and state of undress. Reid still hadn’t laced his trousers. He hastened to do so now. “Imbeciles!” Madame Labelle cried, her voice so loud—so shrill and unpleasant—that a couple of turtle doves fled into the sky. “Cretins! Stupid, asinine children. Are you capable of thinking with the northernmost regions of your bodies, or are you ruled entirely by sex?”

“It’s a toss-up on any given day.” Marching to my bedroll, pulling Reid along in tow, I threw my blanket over his shoulders. His skin was still too ashen for my taste, his breathing too shallow. He pulled me under his shoulder, thanking me with a brush of his lips to my ear. “Though I am surprised to hear a madam being so prudish.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Sitting up in his bedroll, Beau dragged a hand through his rumpled hair. Sleep still clung to his face. “Just this once, I might call it prudence instead. And that’s saying something from me.” He arched a brow in my direction. “Was it good, at least? Wait—scratch that. If it was with anyone other than my brother, maybe—”

“Shut up, Beau, and stoke the fire while you’re at it,” Coco snapped, her eyes raking every inch of my skin. She frowned at whatever she saw there. “Is that blood? Are you hurt?”

Beau cocked his head to study me before nodding in agreement. He made no move to stoke the fire. “Not your best look, sister mine.”

“She’s not your sister,” Reid snarled.

“And she looks better than you on her worst day,” Coco added.

He chuckled and shook his head. “I suppose you’re both entitled to your wrong opinions—”

“Enough!” Madame Labelle threw her hands in the air, wearisome in her exasperation, and glared between all of us. “What happened?”

With a glance up at Reid—he’d tensed as if Madame Labelle had stuck him with a fire poker—I quickly recounted the events at the pool. Though I skimmed the intimate parts, Beau groaned and fell backward anyway, pulling a blanket over his face. Madame Labelle’s expression grew stonier with each word. “I was trying to maintain four patterns all at once,” I said, prickling with defensiveness at her narrowed eyes, at the spots of color rising to her cheeks. “Two patterns to help us breathe and two patterns to help us hear. It was too much to control the temperature of the water too. I’d hoped I could last long enough for the Chasseurs to leave.” I looked reluctantly at Reid, who stared determinedly at his feet. Though he’d returned his Balisarda to his bandolier, he still gripped its handle with his free hand. His knuckles were white around it. “I’m sorry I couldn’t.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” he mumbled.

Madame Labelle plowed onward, heedless of any and all emotional cues. “What happened to the Chasseurs?”

Again, I glanced at Reid, prepared to lie if necessary.

He answered for me, his voice hollow. “I killed them. They’re dead.”

Finally, finally, Madame Labelle’s face softened.

“Then he gave me his body heat on the bank.” I hurried to continue the story, suddenly anxious to end this conversation, to pull Reid aside and comfort him somehow. He looked so—so wooden. Like one of the trees growing around us, strange and unfamiliar and hard. I loathed it. “It was a clever bit of magic, but he almost died from the cold himself. I had to leech warmth from a memory to revive—”

“You what?” Madame Labelle drew herself up to her full height and stared down her nose at me, fists clenched in a gesture so familiar that I paused, staring. “You foolish girl—”

I lifted my chin defiantly. “Would you have preferred I let him die?”

“Of course not! Still, such recklessness must be checked, Louise. You know good and well how dangerous it is to tamper with memory—”

“I’m aware,” I said through gritted teeth.

“Why is it dangerous?” Reid asked quietly.

I turned my head toward him, lowering my voice to match his. “Memories are sort of . . . sacred. Our experiences in life shape who we are—it’s like nurture over nature—and if we change our memories of those experiences, well . . . we might change who we are too.”

“There’s no telling how that memory she altered has affected her values, her beliefs, her expectations.” Madame Labelle sank in a huff onto her favorite tree stump. Breathing deeply, she straightened her spine and clasped her hands as if trying to focus on something else—anything else—than her anger. “Personality is nuanced. There are some who believe nature—our lineage, our inherited characteristics—influences who we are, regardless of the lives we lead. They believe we become who we are born to be. Many witches, Morgane included, use this philosophy to excuse their heinous behavior. It’s nonsense, of course.”

Every eye and ear in the Hollow fixed solely on her. Even Beau poked his head out in interest.

Reid’s brows furrowed. “So . . . you believe nurture holds greater sway than nature.”

“Of course it does. The slightest changes in memory can have profound and unseen consequences.” Her gaze flicked to me, and those familiar eyes tightened almost infinitesimally. “I’ve seen it happen.”